Without limiting the scope of the present invention, its background will be described with regard to trading common stock, as an example.
In trading common stock, there are three fundamental factors an investor must consider. These factors are what stock to trade, when to open a position in the stock and when to close that position in the stock. There are enumerable models that attempt to help the investor identify these factors each of which are based upon particular criteria. Some of the models are best suited for the long term investor using a buy and hold approach. Other models are better suited for the short term investor including, for example, an active investor who opens and closes positions in the same day or week.
In determining what stock to trade, a typical long term investor may perform substantial research into a particular company in an effort to evaluate the future success of that company. For example, a long term investor may evaluate whether the company has products or services that are likely to have an increase in sales, the effectiveness of a company's research and development, the profit margin of the company, the size and effectiveness of the company's sales organization, labor relations within the company, the quality of management personnel at the company, the competitiveness of the company in relation to other companies in the industry, the long range outlook for profits and the like.
In addition to these business related factors, the long term investor may look at factors such as whether the company typically pays dividends on common stock, the price to earnings ratio of the stock and the market capitalization of the company as well as earnings, revenue and net income of the company. On the other hand, an investor that is interested in short term investments may not perform such detailed research but instead may focus on factors such as volume of trades, proximity to a milestone such as a fifty two week high, difference between current volume and a historical volume, number of daily highs, money flow and the like in identifying a stock of interest.
Once an investor has identified a stock of interest, the investor must then determine when and how to open a position in that stock. A long term investor might, for example, call a broker and request the purchase of a certain number of shares of the stock at the market price. The short term investor, however, who may be more interested in such factors as the volatility of the stock or the liquidity of the stock in making such a decision may want to use an online system to place an order to achieve faster execution.
The next step for an investor once they have opened a position in a stock is to determine when to close that position. A long term investor may, for example, make a decision to sell a stock based upon factors such as a fundamental change in a company that does not comport with the investor's original criteria for buying stock in that company, a change in management in the company, under performance of the stock, the stock reaching an unacceptable low, a belief that the stock has peaked or simply a belief that another investment has better long term prospects. Again, the long term investor may call a broker and request that the stock be sold at a particular time or when it reaches a particular price. While some of the above factors may also be important to a short term investor, a short term investor may focus more heavily on such factors as the continued momentum of the stock or simply making certain all open positions are closed by the end of a day and may again use an online system to achieve trade execution.
Regardless of the investment strategies, however, these three factors, what to stock to trade, when and how to open a position in that stock and when and how to close the position in that stock, remain key elements in any successful investment strategy. Therefore, a need has arisen for a system and method that provide the investor with a user environment that includes information that is useful in selecting stocks and that allow the investor to execute trades. A need has also arisen for such a method and system that provide the investor with access to multiple trade execution locations include multiple market participant types. Further, a need has arisen for such a method and system wherein the investor may obtain the best fill for an order.